Reflecting Upon My Reflections

In the first couple weeks of the course, we talked about learning mathematics and what we can do as teachers to enhance our students' understanding of mathematical concepts. The articles read helped me to realize the best approaches to use and to look at my own teaching philosophy critically. We were also periodically given math puzzles to work on and post our own solutions to. This was one of my favourite aspects of the course, because I feel like this is a great way to gather interest in mathematics, which has traditionally been seen as a 'boring' subject, and I will definitely consider implementing this in my own classroom. In addition, seeing all the different types of approaches different people use helps to highlight that there are many ways to solve a problem, not just one. 

The first major project was the math art project. After having completed it, I came out of it with a greater appreciation for math and its intrinsic artistic beauty. It was also a great way to work collaboratively with other teacher candidates while working towards one common goal. It reminded my of myself in Grade 9 Math Honours, where we were tasked with creating a picture on our graphing calculators using common functions. If there was a project aspect of a math course I am teaching in the future, I would like to do something similar.

The next theme was looking into the curriculum and had us do microteaching lessons. Although I found the amount of time devoted to looking at the curriculum to be lacking, I did like the microteaching lessons. The one thing that stood out to me was the timing associated with teaching, as I believe it is one of the most important things to consider when planning a lesson.

We as a class also participated in two math fairs: one we visited, and the other visited us. I thought that these were interesting as it gave me a lens I could look through and see how different students were able to mesh their 'creative' side with their 'mathematical' side. Also, the passion each student had while presenting was great to see!

In the end, I am happy with the course and the activities I participated in. However, since I have two teachables, I was only able to take one math curriculum course, and I wish I could take more!